OM Hong Kong hosts a Christmas party on 23 December 2011 for Pakistani women and children.

Fiona* never dreamt that God would one day restore her cultural identity by bringing her to OM Hong Kong to serve.

Behind the glow of city lights, a group of people easily go unnoticed—lost sheep in desperate need of the hope of the gospel.

By Father Dave Pivonka, TOR

“This is the time of fulfillment.”

Those are the first words Jesus speaks to us in the Gospel of Mark. For 14 verses, he says nothing. He meets John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descends upon him, and he faces temptation in the wilderness. But through it all, he doesn’t say a word. Then, finally, Jesus speaks: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

The temptation, for most of us, is to hear those words in the past tense. We hear them as something Jesus said long ago to Jewish people in Roman-occupied Galilee.

But that’s not how the Scriptures work. They’re not simply a record of things that were said 2,000 years ago. They’re not a collection of history books like we find at our local library. They are “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword . . . and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).

This means Scripture speaks to us today. Jesus speaks to us today. Right here. Right now. This is the time of fulfillment. This is the time Jesus invites us to know him and follow him and encounter the Kingdom of Heaven. But he doesn’t just invite us. In Mark 1:15, he also tells us how we answer that invitation: “Repent, and believe.”

The Greek word used there for “repent and believe” is metanoia. It implies a turning or a change of mind. So, what Jesus says is, “Turn away from sin, and turn toward me. Change your focus—from sin, from the world, from a culture of distraction—and focus on me instead.” Ultimately, he issues a call to conversion, a call to a new way of thinking and a new way of living. And he issues that call, not just to Peter, James, John, and the rest of the 12, but to you and me.

Which means the question for us is: how do we answer that call? How, here and now, do we repent and believe? How do we experience metanoia?

Last year, the team from 4PM Media and I attempted to answer that question, when we spent 17 days in the Holy Land, filming Metanoia, a new 10-part video series on conversion and discipleship.

But the trip turned out to be much more than that.

Shot on location in some of our faith’s most sacred places, including the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, and the desert of temptations, Metanoia invites viewers to an encounter with Christ in both Scripture and history. It also invites each of us to look deep into our hearts, so we can hear how Christ is calling us to conversion.

For many Catholics, it’s tempting to think of conversion as a once and done event. It’s equally tempting to think of it as something other people need: that Jesus is calling other people to repent and believe—“those bishops and priests” or “those people who are in serious sin”—but not us. No, we think, it’s those people who need conversion. Never us. But in reality, it is always us.

Every one of us struggles in some way to live the Gospel. Every one of us has some area of our life that we have not handed over to Jesus. Every one of us, to some extent, bears some responsibility for the problems in the Church and world today.

That’s why conversion is a process each and every one of us must continually enter into. It’s a lifelong journey of being transformed by Christ and conformed to Christ. It’s never done. At least, not until we see Jesus face to face and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And so, over the course of 10 weeks, Metanoia will invite Catholics to become the witness the world needs us to be and the disciples Jesus calls us to be. It does that by asking us to look at different areas of our life and faith—from our understanding of who Christ is and what it means to pray, to how we approach the Church’s more challenging teachings. It then invites us to think and pray about how Jesus calls us to conversion in those areas.

The whole series is really one big invitation to let God into every aspect of our life and transform it all.

Metanoia launches on Monday, February 3. Episodes will be available to watch at wildgoose.tv. I hope you join us. Because this is the time of fulfillment. Jesus is here. He has something for us right now. But we will never experience it if we don’t repent and believe. We will never experience it without metanoia.

CNA Staff, May 9, 2020 / 06:01 am (CNA).- Pakistan’s government has declined to include the Ahmadi religious group in its National Commission for Minorities, drawing attention to the group whose Muslim self-identification is rejected by many Muslims.

In a note seen by Reuters, Pakistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs said Ahmadis should not be included in the commission “given the religious and historical sensitivity of the issue.” Pakistan’s constitution does not recognize the Ahmadis as Muslim.

However, Ahmadis consider themselves part of Islam. The movement was founded in 1889 in British-ruled India. They consider their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad a “subordinate prophet.” Other Muslims see this as a violation of the tenet that Muhammad was the last prophet.

There are about 500,000 Ahmadis in Pakistan and up to 20 million adherents worldwide. Some observers estimate the Ahmadi population in Pakistan is higher, but persecution encourages Ahmadis to hide their identity.

Pakistan’s religious freedom record has been a matter of international concern.

The 2020 report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has said Ahmadis continue to face “severe persecution from authorities as well as societal harassment due to their beliefs.”

Both government authorities and mobs target their places of worship. In October 2019, the report said, police in Punjab partially demolished a 70-year-old Ahmadiyya mosque.

Pakistan’s National Commission for Minorities gives some status, voice, and protections to minorities in a country where over 90% of people identify as Muslim.

A Hindu has been nominated to chair the minorities commission, whose members include representatives of Christian, Kalash, Sikh, and Zoroastrian communities. Government officials and the head of Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology also have commission seats.

State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan, a vocal opponent of including the Ahmadis on the commission, has referred to them as agents of chaos.

“If they want to avail constitutional rights they must accept the constitution first,” he told Reuters. “The Pakistani constitution considers them non-Muslims.”

Usman Ahmad, an Ahmadi representative, told Reuters it is a “complete myth” that they did not accept the constitution. He added that many people disagree with parts of the constitution but still have rights under it.   

He said his community is used to exclusion and has never accepted classification as non-Muslim.

“We’ve never joined such commissions that require us to accept our non-Muslim status,” he said.

Minister of Information Shibli Faraz has said the rights of all people were fully respected in the handling of the commission.

“Every country has the sovereign right to make judgments according to its ground realities,” he told Reuters.

Khan, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, had posted to Twitter, then deleted, a comment “There is only one punishment for insulting the Prophet - chopping off the head.” He said he believed in “legal procedures and court proceedings” for those accused of blasphemy. Twitter told him to delete the post, Reuters reports.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws impose strict punishment on those who desecrate the Quran or who defame or insult Muhammad. Although the government has never executed a person under the blasphemy laws, accusations alone have inspired mob and vigilante violence.

The laws, introduced in the 1980s, are reportedly used to settle scores or to persecute religious minorities. While non-Muslims constitute only 3 percent of the Pakistani population, 14 percent of blasphemy cases have been levied against them.

Many of those accused of blasphemy are murdered, and advocates of changing the law are also targeted by violence.

The Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer was one such critic of the law who was assassinated in January 2011.

Just months later, in March 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti, the first Federal Minister For Minorities Affairs and the only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet, was assassinated by extremists who characterized him as a blasphemer. Bhatti had criticized the law and defended Asia Bibi, a Catholic woman sentenced to death by hanging in 2010 for blasphemy.

Bibi spent nine years on death row, but left Pakistan for Canada in 2019 at the age of 53 after her death sentence was overturned in October 2018.

The verdict and her subsequent release from prison sparked protests from Islamic hardliners who support strong blasphemy laws.

In Punjab last year, a mob attacked a Christian community after a mosque broadcast over loudspeaker a claim that the Christians had insulted Islam. In another incident in Karachi, false blasphemy accusations against four Christian women prompted mob violence that forced nearly 200 Christian families to flee their homes, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said.

The situation in Pakistan has attention from some prominent Catholics.

In a Jan. 21, 2020 letter written on behalf of Philadelphia’s Pakistani Catholic community, then-Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput encouraged Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan to shape a culture of religious freedom

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s latest annual report said religious freedom conditions in Pakistan continued to deteriorate last year, citing “The systematic enforcement of blasphemy and anti-Ahmadiyya laws, and authorities’ failure to address forced conversions of religious minorities—including Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs—to Islam.”

The bipartisan federal commission advises the U.S. government on policy. Its report recommended that the U.S. government name Pakistan a country of particular concern for “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”

In December 2018, for the first time, the U.S. State Department designated Pakistan a “Country of Particular Concern.” The designation, which can trigger sanctions under U.S. law, had been recommended by the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom in 2017 and 2018.

The latest commission report recommended that Pakistan be re-designated a “Country of Particular Concern,” given “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”

Coatzacoalcos, Mexico :: A village gets its first library, with books and shelves donated by Logos Hope.

A long term worker in North Africa is discovering that being ready for opportunities when they arise is a key element in sharing the truth.

Madeleine Coetzer, who has served on Logos Hope for two years, tells how the Lord has changed her life.

Young men from African nations find their identity and destiny through hiking in Namibia with the Wilderness Therapy Programme.

A former Afghan fighter discovers Jesus Christ in the Qur’an.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Need a virtual assistant that can work between your PC and mobile device? Cortana can handle your questions and requests on iOS, Android, and Windows 10.

IT’S not everyone who’s given the chance to design their own tartan so when the opportunity arose, Vixy Rae didn’t need to give it a second thought.

The Black Business Council stood by Minister of Tourism Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane and South Africa's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment policy.

Andy Murray does not think getting the professional tennis circuit back up and running should be a priority any time soon.

Prudence Wade chats to self-confessed 'skincare junkie' Dominic Skinner, one of MAC's top make-up artists.

NICOLA Sturgeon said she does not expect police to be “routinely patrolling office blocks” as sweeping new enforcement powers come into force to include workplaces flouting social distancing rules.

Inverness Botanic Gardens

A Russian tycoon who bought former Rangers owner Craig Whyte’s Highland castle is to stand trial over an alleged £8 million fraud.

TEMPORARY walking and cycling routes are set to pop-up across Scotland in a bid to improve social distancing while Scots are now being advised to wear face coverings in “enclosed spaces”.

In his new book, “The End of British Party Politics?”, the political scientist Roger Awan-Scully captures the paradox of last year’s general election in Scotland.

IN April 2004, the Victoria & Albert museum in London staged an exhibition of the work of Vivienne Westwood. The show was a celebration and a culmination of the fashion designer’s move from the margins of the industry in the 1970s, where she was creating clothes for the punks who hung around the King’s Road, to her 21st-century incarnation as first among equals in British haute couture.

EDUCATION Secretary John Swinney does not expect schools to reopen overnight as he stressed they would only do so when it was safe for public health.

And four strategies for fixing the underlying problems most often laid bare, from Great Schools Partnership’s Craig Kesselheim.

During this hard and scary time, when our students need their teachers the most, suddenly they can’t be there in person. Here are some ways teacher Justin Minkel has found to keep that connection virtually.

Michael Casserly, who has led the Council of the Great City Schools since 1992, will step down next year and become an adviser to the group.

Stronger data practices can help leaders better utilize data as a way to deeply understand the students they serve.

Hosts Istanbul have the early initiative in Group A after a stunning long-range strike from Serkan Uysal, a free-kick and a late penalty earned a 3-0 win against Ukraine's Ingulec.

Croatia's Zagreb head into the final group game knowing that victory will secure a place in the UEFA Regions' Cup final after they replaced Istanbul at the top of Group A.

Ramazan Kallıoğlu struck deep into added time for the ten-man hosts, to hand Lisboa a third Group A draw, David Cardoso's goal not enough to earn them victory.

More than a third of the 30 biggest school districts in the United States are not using any math or English/language arts curricula that are rated highly for alignment to state standards, a new study from the Center for American Progress finds.

It is time to refocus on building competency-based schools that work over time rather than forcing top-down laws that end in superficial changes in policy and no change in student outcomes, says guest blogger Van Schoales.

This week, our resident cartoonist turned his pen on the Coronavirus outbreak, Bernie Sanders rising popularity in the United States and the battle for an SNP seat at Holyrood.

WHAT’S a little distancing between us? Go on, stick your nose closer to the page or screen. Let’s snuggle in a little closer.

Concerned that schools don't notice or nurture business skills, nonprofits are using the humble lemonade stand to foster entrepreneurship.

The 'Total Physical Response' method to learning vocabulary is beneficial for students, especially English-language learners, to break down and analyze the roots and endings of vocabulary words.

Instead of fixating on the word gap and other false language-skills dilemmas, focus on what's really hurting students, writes Olivia Obeso.

The current standard of care includes informing women about prenatal testing and newborn screening for cystic fibrosis and providing genetic counseling to parents whose child is referred for sweat-testing. Despite counseling, early data identified some persistent confusion about residual risk.

Prenatal discussions about carrier testing and newborn screening for cystic fibrosis are not routine. Parental anxiety about abnormal results from a screen is decreased after speaking to a genetic counselor when scheduling the sweat test. Despite counseling, residual risk continues to be poorly understood. (Read the full article)

Conduct problems, substance use, substance use problems, and depressive symptoms increase as black adolescents enter high school. Although family-centered prevention programs deter these problems during middle school, no such programs have been developed and evaluated for black high school students.

This study demonstrates that participation in a family-centered preventive intervention reduces conduct problems, substance use, and substance use problems among black adolescents by more than 30% compared with adolescents in an attention control condition across nearly 2 years. (Read the full article)

Predischarge serum or transcutaneous bilirubinometry (TcB) measurements are recommended as appropriate screening options for identifying infants at risk for neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (NH). Visual inspection for jaundice is not reliable at identifying infants with NH in the community.

When compared with visual inspection alone, coordinated TcB screening for NH in acute-care and community settings is associated with significant improvements in laboratory utilization, patient care, convenience, and safety. (Read the full article)

Although China has the largest birth population in the world and a number of multicenter studies of neonatal respiratory failure are reported, there is a paucity of data regarding outcome measurement of very premature neonates requiring respiratory care and surfactant therapy.

This study is the largest survey, to date, in a Chinese network of 55 NICUs that presents the incidence, morbidity, and mortality rates, with risk factors of neonatal respiratory failure, with special emphasis on surfactant-treated very immature infants. (Read the full article)

There is a perception among clinicians that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia and/or meningitis result in a greater burden of disease than invasive infections attributed to methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) among very low birth weight (VLBW) infants.

VLBW infants with MRSA and MSSA bacteremia and/or meningitis have equivalent morbidity and mortality. These findings suggest that allocation of resources for prevention and treatment of both MRSA and MSSA infections among VLBW infants should be comparable. (Read the full article)

Transcutaneous bilirubinometry was originally developed as a potential replacement for invasive blood sampling, but its clinical application is still limited to a screening method for hyperbilirubinemia. Reasons for this limited clinical value may be diverse.

This study provides insight into the reasons for the limited clinical value of transcutaneous bilirubinometry. This aids to both better interpretation of the measured TcB value from a patient and to possible improvement of the clinical value of the technique. (Read the full article)

The presumed causes of neonatal deaths globally have remained unchanged over the past decade and include infections (~30%), prematurity (~30%), and asphyxia (~25%). Great uncertainty surrounds these estimates and, in addition, cases are likely misclassified as stillbirths.

These observational findings indicate that asphyxia accounts for a much higher percentage (60% of early deaths). Prematurity (18%), low birth weight (8%), and overt infection are much less common. The 5-minute Apgar score is an unreliable indicator of birth asphyxia. (Read the full article)

Disparities in outcomes of ethnic minority children have been reported, and have been ascribed to having barriers to access to health care. Minority parents have indicated that difficulties in access are because of problems with transportation and being non-English speaking.

This population-based study of Texas infants with severe congenital heart disease reports that neither home distance from a cardiac center nor Hispanic children having a Latin American–born parent were risk factors for first-year mortality. (Read the full article)

Primary care settings provide an important venue for early detection of substance use and intervention, but adolescent screening rates need improvement. Screening and brief interventions appear effective in reducing adult problem drinking but evidence for effectiveness among adolescents is needed.

A computer-facilitated system for screening, feedback, and provider brief advice for primary care can increase adolescent receipt of substance use screening across a variety of practice settings, and shows promise for reducing adolescents’ use of alcohol and cannabis. (Read the full article)

Treatment of adolescent migraine remains a significant unmet medical need. In adults, the combination of sumatriptan and naproxen sodium has demonstrated superior efficacy, with similar tolerability, to its components in the acute treatment of migraine.

This study constitutes the first large-scale, placebo-controlled evidence for the acute relief of adolescent migraine pain and associated symptoms with an oral medication. (Read the full article)

A single inhalation of laninamivir octanoate has previously been shown to be as effective as repeated doses of zanamivir in vitro and in vivo, but it is not known whether this is also the case for children.

Median time to fever resolution was not significantly different between laninamivir octanoate and zanamivir for pediatric patients with influenza. The severity of influenza symptoms and the frequency of complications were similar in the 2 groups. (Read the full article)

Parents are increasingly following alternative immunization schedules. Current studies suggest up to 21% of parents in the United States are intentionally delaying or refusing some or all of the recommended early-childhood vaccines.

This is the first study to use Immunization Information System data to quantify the proportion of children consistently delaying receipt of vaccines. Consistent-limiting children were found to have lower levels of recommended vaccines. (Read the full article)